I’m proud to say I finally found a workout program I can stick with. I started Piyo in the beginning of September and I’m almost finished with it. Once I complete it I will be doing a full review of the program on my fitness page. I’ve really recommitted to my fitness journey and have been seeing great progress. I actually find myself looking forward to my workouts most days (what has happened to me?)

I think that is one of the most important things when choosing an exercise plan.. finding something you’ll enjoy. If you don’t enjoy it, you’ll view it as a burden and dread your workouts. How can you possibly stick with something like that? You’re workouts should still challenge you, of course, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy them.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to try my hand in making green smoothies. I was a little hesitant, because the thought of drinking veggies just doesn’t sound that appealing to me. But in my healthy lifestyle journey, I have tried many things that I was first apprehensive about but turned out to me amazing. So in the spirit of open-mindedness and trying to things, I decided to give it a go and make my first ever green smoothie.

To my surprise and delight, the first try was an absolute success. It was so delicious and I couldn’t taste the spinach at all.

Now I must have been feeling particularly ambitious that day because I decided to make this green smoothie to take to work with me as my lunch. It was a great idea in theory, a healthy smoothie full of spinach and superfoods for lunch. But the real question was, would it be filling enough to be considered an entire meal?

I’ve had four serious recipe fails this week… Okay, I take that back. One failed recipe, and three great recipes that are sooooo close to being perfect, but they’re just not there yet. How frustrating. I suppose they can’t all be winners, at least not on first try, but the perfectionist in me just won’t accept that. I learned something from each failure, which I suppose is the important thing, but blog-ready recipes would make me much happier. 🙂

So in lieu of my recent mishaps I decided to go with a fail safe for today’s post, my strawberry banana smoothie. What a classic smoothie. I’m sure there are a million different recipes out there for a strawberry banana smoothie, but this is my take on it and, it’s pretty damn delicious. The use of frozen fruit instead of ice cubes and juice instead of milk or water, gives this smoothie so much amazing flavor.

So about a week and a half ago, I injured my right knee AND my left ankle. I went to the doctor and after an x-ray and an ultra sound it was determined that I have something-itis above my knee cap… I cannot for the life of me remember what it was called. But essentially it means I have fluid in my knee which is what is causing all the swelling and pain. On top of that I strained my Achilles tendon. Needless to say I can barely walk and have been limping around like an idiot ever since. I also get to answer the same question 900 times a day, “What happened to your knee?” I think I might start making up a more exciting story of what happened to my knee (although I can’t remember the last time a heard an exciting knee injury story), as opposed to the truth that I decided to take up running over my vacation and after about a week, my good intentions ended in an epic fail.

I have bad knees to begin with, per a lovely car accident 3 years ago that ended in both my knees breaking through the dashboard, a nice hospital visit, and a totaled Honda Civic. That plus weak ankles and poor footwear was just a recipe for disaster. I think I’m definitely done running. Walking is really more my speed anyways.. But what is killing me is that I haven’t been able to workout at all since the injury. I’m in a lot of pain and have been instructed to stay off my legs as much as I can. It makes me so regret those days when I was too busy to workout, or too tired or [insert excuse here]. I feel like all the progress I’ve made over the past 3 months is just withering away. Hopefully I’ll be back in commission soon and can use this feeling as motivation to take my workouts to a whole new level.

I’ve been trying to find ways to get more protein in my diet. I experimented with tracking my food intake for about a month, just to get a better idea of where I was lacking nutritionally. It’s something I recommend everyone try at least for a short amount of time, it can be really eye opening. There’s a lot of different websites and apps that make it really easy to do. For me, I discovered that I wasn’t getting nearly as much protein as I should, especially with my fitness goals.

This morning I was trying to think of a good breakfast I could eat before my workout. I was gearing up to do an intense ab and cardio workout and I wanted something filling and with lots of protein to give me energy.

I’ve finally gotten back into the routine of working out again. I’m ashamed to say this past winter was a lazy one in the exercise department. I still did my best to eat healthy, but for true overall health, you need exercise as well. I work a day job where for 40+ hours a week, I sit at a desk. It’s just thrilling. Unfortunately now a lot of jobs involve sitting behind a computer all day. And for those of us that do that type of work, we need to pay special attention to the amount of exercise we’re getting (or not getting).

It can be difficult to get yourself in the routine of working out each day, especially when you don’t have much free time to begin with. It’s one of those things that you may fail at many times before you succeed, and that’s okay, because at least you’re trying. A couple weeks ago I just woke up and said “Today’s the day”. That day (for no reason in particular) I was finally ready to make this commitment to myself and my health. Don’t get me wrong though, it hasn’t been easy. Finding the time and energy to workout each night when I get home is a challenge. But it’s something I decided I need to make time for. It’s only been about 3 weeks since I started working out again and I’m already noticing some great progress. And for me, that’s motivation enough to keep going. Also the prospect of soon having to wear a bikini is pretty good motivation as well. 😉

Now back to the oatmeal… I think I created a great pre-workout breakfast with this peanut butter banana oatmeal. It comes in with 16 grams of protein, it’s filling, and isn’t overly sweet, there’s no added sugar. Personally for me, this was a little too much food for one sitting. I have a small stomach and tend to need to eat small amounts multiple times a day. So I ate half before my workout, and half after.

If you want to add a little something extra to this, I recommend topping with some extra peanut butter, sliced bananas, chopped nuts, sprinkling with a little unrefined sugar (if you like your oatmeal sweet), or adding some chocolate chips. I actually did not add any chocolate chips to mine, which if you know me at all you would find surprising given my deep love of chocolate and peanut butter. You know what I call that? Personal growth..

I’m pretty sure the only reason I called these “breakfast cookies” is to make myself feel better about eating cookies for breakfast, which, let’s face it, I would do no matter what they were called. But, I’m okay with that.

These cookies are gluten free. They are made without sugar, eggs, flour, butter, or oil. They are vegan. And most importantly, they’re delicious.

These are packed with so many good ingredients. They have everything a breakfast should: fruit, oats, chia seeds, peanut butter.. and of course.. chocolate chips.

These are so easy to make, you just need one bowl, no mixer required. I like things simple, and with easy clean up 🙂

My Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies seemed to be really popular so I’m going to try to make more breakfasts and desserts without any added sugar. I will admit, I am completely addicted to sugar. I stay away from white refined sugar but sugar is still sugar and you should limit it where you can.

I love to have easy, on the go snacks. Something I can have real quick before a workout or an afternoon snack at work. But if you ever checked out the ingredients in your store bought granola bars or protein bars, they’re filled with a bunch of ingredients you don’t want in your body. So I started making my own.

I’m on a mission to make my own everything these days because it’s really important to me to know exactly whats in the food I eat. These bars turned out great, they’re healthy and filling and the possibilities for variations are endless.

I really do try to eat all natural everything and stay away from processed foods. One of the things I couldn’t seem to find in stores without any preservatives, added sugars, and nasty chemicals I don’t want in my body was jam. But homemade jams can be a serious project, taking almost an hour of processing time. I love my PB&J so I had to find an alternative. So here is a super easy (and healthy) jam recipe. No boiling, no reducing, and no refined sugars! It only takes two minutes to throw everything together and than let the fridge do the rest of the work. Problem: solved.

This jam is great on toast, with yogurt, on ice cream, in sandwiches, or anything else you could think to use it for!

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Meet Mallorie Mae

She's an ACE Certified Personal Trainer and the founder of Eat Real Healthy Food, a lifestyle blog encompassing healthy eating, recipes, wellness, and fitness. Eat Real Healthy Food came to life as part of Mallorie's own journey to find health, fitness, and happiness. Subscribe to her blog to follow along on her journey. Read More →

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